What's more natural than to give a heroic yell and swat the guy closest to you? Pretty sexy. As a nice side-effect it gives an attack option for Range 0 and allows the guy who finds himself suddenly positioned out of weapon range to potentially have other options, not without risk of course since they can all shield bash him in return and he might not have any defenses by then.

Q1. Does it make sense to allow heroes to shield bash out of Range 0 at penalties? Even if there is a mechanic, I'm not sure it makes that much sense to shield bash someone 2 bands away at -4, but I'm possibly taking the battlemap too literally.

Q2. If this is going to become an official weapon, then presumably it can be used by minion groups. Would they then all lose their shield dice for defense?